In October 2018, we held the first part of our project, an international conference titled “The Poetics and Ethics of ‘Living With’: Indigenous, Canadian and Québécois Feminist Production Today,” which gathered over thirty speakers in Banff, Alberta. We discussed different representations of “living with” as a radical form of encounter, engagement, and care for four intense days. Then, between November 2020 and May 2021, we continued thinking collaboratively about these topics with a second conference, “The Poetics and Ethics of ‘Learning With’: Indigenous, Canadian, and Québécois Feminist Production Today,” this time online due to COVID19 restrictions. We placed the emphasis on the notion of “learning with,” which we envisioned as a methodological, pedagogical, as well as aesthetic position with transformative ethical consequences. This second conference was organized by Libe García Zarranz (NTNU, ILU), Amanda Fayant (Researcher/Artist, Treaty 4, Canada, based in Trondheim), Marie Carrière (University of Alberta) and Dominique Hétu (Brandon University, Canada). Supporting institutions and communities included the Department of Teacher Education (ILU) at NTNU, the Head of Research at ILU, GenderHub NTNU, TransLit NTNU, the Canadian Literature Centre (CLC) at the University of Alberta, the Office of the Vice-Président Research & Innovation at the University of Alberta, the Faculty of Arts, and the Dept. of English and Film Studies at the University of Alberta.

We now wish to complete this thought-provoking transdisciplinary project with a peer-reviewed edited collection consisting of multiple fresh perspectives at the intersection of feminist ethics and poetics. Stay tuned!

Program, book of abstracts and bios (PDF)

Recordings